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Americans have less tolerance for slow customer service amid pandemic

The company surveyed 280 Americans ranging from 18-65+ years old who shared their experience about customer service during the pandemic

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Americans have less tolerance for slow customer service amid pandemic. Source: pexels.com

According to ArenaCX, people have become more intolerant and skeptical of the recorded “unusually high call volume” messages. In fact, nearly 50% of respondents are not entirely convinced the automated voice recordings are truthful.

Further results revealed that over 50% of Millennials and Gen Zers would rather get their teeth cleaned over dealing with customer service. When faced with poor customer service, consumer frustration generally results in lost sales as another finding showed that nearly 70% of people of all ages have abandoned a brand after a negative customer experience.

The report has revealed that over 80% of the respondents have experienced higher than normal wait times when put on customer service hold. Meanwhile, nearly half of those respondents refused to continue to wait for a representative upon receiving messages of “unusually high call volume.” Every abandoned phone call is a lost brand opportunity to connect with customers in need.

According to information, the reliance on e-commerce and on-demand services is unlikely to waver. For instance, 64% of respondents who have been shopping more online since the start of the pandemic stated they will continue to sustain increased levels of online shopping long after the nation achieves herd immunity.

Besides, 56% of respondents said that they would be willing to pay a premium price for a product if it meant a company could ensure outstanding customer support.

This last finding about consumer willingness to pay added fees as a guarantee to avoid bad customer support surprised me the most. Consumers think customer service is generally so terrible, they are willing to pay more if it ensures seamless, faster interactions. This should be a clear wake-up call to companies that the way they are delivering customer support is not working. Instead of simply relying on good management to hit high-level customer satisfaction metrics, brands must actually incorporate customer satisfaction into the heart of their operations – where performance actually affects the amount of interactions a given agent or team will handle. I'm proposing a complete overhaul of the way the customer service function is run, and clearly, there is a direct connection to increased revenue and customer retention for brands to do it
Doc Shufelt, CEO and Co-Founder, ArenaCX

We’ve reported that nearly 3/4 of eBay sellers started embracing recommerce.

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